Forgetting The Words

Improvised
explosive devices, suicide
bombers, kamikaze pilots;

imagine, I say, there was a time
when no one had ever heard
each of those phrases. 

We should
try to forget them,
you say.

Try, I say.
Just try, and I will wait here
for your limbs

to rain down upon me
once the detonation
is complete.  Once a genie

comes when called,
it’s hard to uncall it.
Once a path’s been cut,

it never completely
grows over, no matter how narrow
and choked it seems.

You say
damn you cynic,
things change.  I say

bless you, naive one, I agree —
but not that much, and never
back to the original state of grace.

We just aren’t
built
for unknowing.